Devour City

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The everyday fattens. The struggle spices. Welcome to Devour City.Asher wasn't ready for any of it when he sat down to write his chemistry final.He certainly wasn't ready to be added to the menu of wraiths and gods.To discover that reality might be portals, magic, Ragers, and energy devouring fiends.But they are alive, his family is alive.

Chapters are between 1,200 and 2,500 words.

Cover by liderc.art

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2022
Author: Forsaken Fry

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.5/ 5.0
Followers: 15
Views: 13,155

Chapters(37 total)

Reviews

No reviews yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!

Community Reviews(10)

srwoodsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This had got to be the most unique story I’ve read on this site so far. That’s a good thing honestly it was a refreshing read, so many stories end up being more of the same. It’s a modern fantasy with all of the expected stuff like cellphones cars and magic, there’s even a sword.
Style: It’s in the third person from a who lot of different prospective. It’s a little frantic and took me a few chapters to get used to the pacing but once I did, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it read. The formatting is well done and I didn’t have any trouble keeping my place.
Story: It’s wild bonkers and all over the place but as you get farther things start to fall into place and before long you are nodding and going “Oh so that’s what’s happening,” and then you really start to enjoy it. Oh and after you get to the big reveal reread the story everything will make a long more sense. I think one of the best parts was when I finally figure out what was going wrong. Although I’m kind of sad we didn’t get a quantum leap thing going on. Wait does that make me old?
Grammar: I didn’t find anything wrong with the grammar in this story.
Characters: The characters are interesting and honestly and react about as well as you’d expect real people to in the strange situations they find themselves in. Personally I liked the weird group that’s named after foods, the others are starting to grow on me thought and while I’m not the biggest fan of teenagers in fiction these ones aren’t so bad.
So to wrap this up I’ll say that this is worth the read, a few times in fact trust me you’ll enjoy it more the second time around.
Paul James KeyesRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I'm 10 chapters in, but I've been hooked since Chapter 4 or 5. The tone and voice are entertaining with a realistic and yet comidic flair to the diologue and narration. This story may feel slightly rushed in the early chapters as you take everything in, but do yourself a favor and roll with the FLICKS as the pieces of this story fall into place!
The pacing is fast, and the hooks draw you forward. It feels like peeling-back layers as I go deeper into Asher's and Cheddar's worlds. This story successfully shuffles protagonists between chapters, keeping the plot rolling forward in exactly the right directions to satisfy me in the moment while simultaneously leaving me with so many questions in my head. Leaving readers wanting to know more about your world at the end of each chapter is a whole mood, and is what I believe to be the secret sauce behind why this story is so successful. I can't wait to read the rest!
The characters are realistic and entertaining, and growing on me with each passing chapter. The story is so imaginative and keeps evolving to keep me guessing. There are few typos, and the descriptions don't bog me down, but still paint a dynamic picture. Would recommend, 5/5
SummerRennaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
After ten chapters, this has been a fun and entertaining read so far!
Style: The prose is well done, and the writer has a strong voice. The dialogue is also well-written, especially in the exchanges between Asher and his friends.
Story: The first few chapters admittedly threw me for a bit of a loop, as a lot of supernatural events begin unfolding very quickly, but as you continue reading these seemingly disparate elements come together to form a cohesive and intriguing story. I really enjoy stories that don't feel the need to explain everything right away and allow the reader to guess and figure things out as more details are gradually introduced. The story is also very fast-paced, which I think works in its favor.
Grammar: The grammar is solid. There weren't any errors in grammar or spelling that I've noticed over the course of my reading.
Characters: Devour City features a very dynamic cast of characters. I would say my favorite so far is O' Leary. I enjoy the juxtaposition between his quick temper and his steadfast loyalty to his friends. Wheeler is also a highlight, and his back-and-forth with O'Leary is gold.
Overall: Devour City is a very engaging and unique read!
Wandering Brain SpasmRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Don’t let the first chapter fool you. This is not a young adult misadventure about school and sportsball and teenage angst. And my god, I’ve never been happier to have a story flip the script on me so suddenly and unexpectedly. If you’re a big picture person and need the complete world and all its rules upfront, this one isn’t for you. Let’s just get that out of the way. The author breadcrumbs you along with little hints and cleverly disguised reveals until you have no choice but to binge it just to figure out what the heck is going on.
The style is clean and relatively straight-forward, with some fun quirks. Either the author is an evil genius who intended this or it’s a happy accident, but chapter one and two read like they were written by two completely different people. Some readers might feel betrayed by this, but I loved it. The sudden shift in tone immediately transitioned me into the ‘oh, this isn’t what I thought it was’ mindset. My only hesitation is that the first tone might deter potential readers before they’ve had a chance to realize they’ve been duped. The interactions between characters felt a little clunky at first, especially the parts in the classroom. Either this cleared up by chapter three or I just stopped caring.
This story is the most out-there story I have come across in a long time. I don’t know what to expect because, honestly, this might be new frontier territory. It’s overwhelming at first, but once I settled in and trusted the author to give me the details on their timeline, I really enjoyed it. Where is it going to go? Who knows. Do I care? No. Keep giving me talking cacti.
The grammar was pretty solid. The first chapter had a small scattering of improperly punctuated dialogue tags (using commas with an action tag instead of a period) but they were few and far between and it didn’t detract from the story.
My biggest issue was with the characters. They felt flat and, at first glance, seemed like the standard cookie cutter roles you see
5unRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall Score (5/5):
This story is worth your time. If for no other reason, the creativity on full display in this fiction warrants a read. The characters range from your average teenage classmate to runic-shotgun blasting undead badasses. They are distinct entities with unique descriptions, backstories, and personalities, and their relationships have weight, causing emotional rollercoasters as the chapters barrel forwards. And barrel forwards they do—Fry, recently, has had an extremely consistent release schedule, and there's a lot to read. Each chapter offers something new to the plot, characters, and world: I'm hooked.
Style Score (5/5): Blending subjective and limited third-person narration, we get a feel for the characters' mindset and personality as we read. Prose and dialogue delivery is crisp, and descriptions are rich with details without being wordy or tedious to read. Fry has chosen to use a "Flick" device to indicate something that would give too many spoilers to explain, and it throws off the reading a little bit, but not too much. I think it works as well as any device would that seeks to achieve a similar effect, and is well executed.
Grammar Score (4.5/5):
There is a heavy use of the em dash, and if that bothers you, you may have a hard time in the first few chapters. Some sentences feel a little clunky, but overall the grammar isn't perfect, but it's good enough. This is an area that could use some improvement, but it's not so bad that it detracts from the understanding of the prose.
Story Score (5/5):
There's a lot to say here, but I'm just going to let you read it. It's extremely unique; I can't think of anything akin to it, and that's a good thing. Check it out.
Character Score (5/5):
The characters are my favorite part of this story. Every single one of them is fleshed out with an abundance of detail and attention. I have many favorites, and am excited to follow their development.
CKJ5Royal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
I hope people will keep in mind this review is based on only one chapter of the story: Devour City, and does not necessarily reflect the entirety of it. Okay, now that's of the way, let’s get into it.
Pros:
The author does a great job of opening their story with this chapter. They drop us into their world, don’t info-dump a bunch of lore, establishes a solid narrative, and gives us questions we want to be answered. Bravo.
Cons:
I only have two real complaints about the first chapter. The first is, at times, the conversation felt cluttered. It may have something to do with the formatting, but it also may have something to do with my second complaint, which is after the first chapter, I still have no idea how any of the characters look. I don’t need the MC going down a checklist telling me every aspect of their classmates in the first chapter. But a few more details would have helped establish a stronger connection to the characters, as well as help to create a clearer picture when characters speak.
Grammatically, the first chapter is solid, but another pass-over could make it better.
Overall:
The first chapter does what you would want a first chapter to do. It got me to read the second chapter before writing my review.
Akten DreamsRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall - It's a bit hard to define the story. The early part is clear and confusing at the same time. It makes sense later on as things click together, but I fear that the early parts will shu away quite a few readers.
Style - The style of writing is centered around the view of one character, and it sticks with that for the chapter. But generally speaking, it's set in the 3ed PoV and there are other viewpoints to be seen and read. The others provide some depth of character and worldbuilding of the story, while the MC bumbles into everything with fresh new eyes.
Grammar - Basically perfect from my point of view. Wish, my English was that good. Good English and the style of this story proved to be quite a flare of the stuff going on.
Story - The story, as of this review, is still in its infancy from what I read. It has its good sides, but it can be confusing if you don't pay attention and engage your brain. I won't shy away from saying I have quite the imagination, but damn it took me a while to make sense of the things going on. Once my mind grasped the underlying principle, the plot of the story made sense and I liked it.
Character score - For how little of the story I read, there were surprisingly a lot of characters in the story. All of them had some unique characterizations. But the best part I guess is the MC. He has a lot of depth to himself, and the things that made him the way he was. Especially with the things happening to him in the story.
If I had to say a few things, it would be this. The way the story is structured it would make for a good Comic. The main reason is the setup between the Grey World and those outside it. Won't say too much about it, but because of the dichotomy of colors, the story would gain extra juice.
So my hope for the Author to succeed with the story will remain a Hope.
Yours truly, Akten Dreams.
mneueRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
Overall Review: If there is anything to complain about with this story, it is that it has too many characters / moving parts in the beginning, and you're left wondering what is going on for a while before the pieces start clicking into place. Once it does, it gets amazing quite fast! I would highly recommend that anyone losing steam at the start gives this a thorough chance. You won't be disappointed.
Style Score: The first few chapters have you bouncing around different POVs, often observing some of the same events through different eyes. Because you're thrust into an otherworldly crisis with the MC, you're pretty lost for a while as you do some head-hopping, and it got to be a slog before the dots got connected. It is clear that the author has a strong plan for where he's going, but I don't think the start works as well in our heads as it does in his. None of this is to say that the style is bad. Indeed, between the banter of the characters at the start of the chapter and the way he pulls in different time-skips, it is brilliantly executed if you're willing to give it multiple passes. But that that needed to happen for me greatly slowed down the process, so some restructuring might be in order to give it that even 5-star flow.
Story Score: It is hard to describe how weird the story / setting is. Like, there is no way for me even hint at plot points without it sounding anywhere short of ridiculous. It is all completely out of left field, and therefore worth experiencing for yourself. I can already tell you that this is more interesting than 99% of the stories on here. The story alone is its biggest seller, and more than makes up for everything else.
Grammar Score: No complaints. If there are any mistakes, I didn't catch them.
Character Score: Sadly, another weak point, at least 10 chapters in. I don't think any of the characters are inherently weak based off presentation, I just think there are too many of them floating around this early to be able to latch onto. I
Emerson FortierRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
This is a very weird story. It's really hard to know what else to say about it, except that, if you're into weird stories, this one might be really cool.
As of posting this, I have only reached chapter 5. Taken individually, each chapter had me very very confused, at least at the start. I thought at first that I was reading some kind of LITRPG apocalypse experienced by only one character. It wasn't until chapter 3 and Cheddar's introduction that I started to get some idea of what I was jumping into.
It reminds me a lot of "john dies at the end". It's a trip. The kind where we are all food, and some interdimensional monster is hiring other dimensions to cook us so they can snack on us. That kind of weird.
It is, frankly, the kind of weird that I think works better in a book than it does as a web-serial. That said, the story definitely seems promising. The elements are all there for this to become something very special if the author can carry the weirdness all the way.
Style:
Style is a bit weak, at least at the start. Character descriptions consist of describing the character's clothes. The story perspective seems to duck in and out of character's heads, I believe, in an attempt to give that "bad trip" vibe. After a couple of chapters I feel like I kind of got used to it, but it felt a bit rough going in. I had to re-read a couple of chapters, but by chapter 5 felt like I had the gist of what was going on.
Grammar:
Fine. Only a few minor mistakes, as we all make.
Story:
Weird. Like I said. A definite flavor choice. if it works for you, you'll like it, if it doesn't, you won't like it. I think it's promising, but definitely something I'd rather get in paperback than on screen.
Character:
Some characters are very vibrant, while others are kind of drab. This is entirely defined by the clothing they are wearing and their physical features, because this is what we're given. Normally when I'm reading, I totally disregard most physical descriptions. If an owl is talking, I
Elijah TalbotRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
This story is interesting. From reading this, I can safely say there is a barrier of entry. Unfortunately, I don’t make the cut. I will be honest to say that I struggled to read this story, which I can’t tell if it’s a fault of my own capabilities and understanding of the story and its niche style, or what I assume are pacing issues. With this in mind, I can’t rank down harshly, since I have no idea what I have just read.
Style and grammar: The style flows pretty well, and the grammar is really solid. The pacing is really fast in the first couple of chapters. Like if you blink, you’ll miss a lot of context and clues. I will admit to say that the pacing isn’t an easy read, since immediately you are thrown into the action and the best you can do is ride it out.
Story and characters: I won’t lie, I have no idea what is going on in the story. I don’t know what the shades are, what Cheddar is, or what the flicks represent (either a dimensional change, a change in the timeline, I don’t know). To me, my enjoyment doesn’t derive from understanding the story. Since I don’t think it is, nor can I find enjoyment in finding it. But the experience, the entire thing is a rollercoaster of shit happening. If you don’t know what is going on, the story doesn’t care and it’ll keep on chugging. And it’s fun, even if it is a bit maddening trying to figure out what is going on. Well, for me that is. Some people figured out what the story is and what is going on, but from my view, I struggle with how they can come to that conclusion. Granted, that could be my inability to understand.
Overall: Granted, it might make sense with a reread. But personally, I find the story too frustrating to be worth a reread. It is clearly not for me, I can’t get into it. I can see why people will like it, but for a dumb dumb like me. I can’t say I enjoyed it.